Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: sheltonmac
Perhaps the best case to be made against euthanasia and abortion is to appeal to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

To say that someone has a "right" to physicisn-assisted suicide is to use the same convoluted logic that went into the Roe v. Wade decision.

There is no 'convoluted logic', save in your mind. -- If a specific act of abortion, - or assisted suicide, -- is deemed to be murder, a prosecutor can get an indictment, and so charge.

Roe v Wade did not change that state power, nor does Oregons new law.

Roe v Wade said that states cannot make laws claiming that abortion in the first trimester is presumptive murder. -- They said that the viabilty of the baby/person to be is not yet established, - thus, -- there can be no murder, as the mother to be has a perfect right to remove part of her own body.

No one likes this legal solution to a moral dilemma, but fanatical cries of 'baby killing' offer nothing better.

190 posted on 04/23/2002 6:08:55 PM PDT by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 182 | View Replies ]


To: tpaine
I guess it all depends on what your definition of "due process" is. If due process can be defined as having a doctor write a prescription for poison, then physician-assisted suicide would be constitutionally protected.

"If a specific act of abortion, - or assisted suicide, -- is deemed to be murder, a prosecutor can get an indictment, and so charge."

Abortion was deemed to be murder but Roe v. Wade essentially changed the definition and gave women a "right" that had not been in existence in the majority of states.

I guess it all depends on what your definition of "person" is. You seem to be asserting that states would first have to pass a law recognizing the "personhood" of the unborn child before they could outlaw abortion. The convoluted logic behind Roe v. Wade is that it basically denied the personhood of the unborn child , something most states took for granted. That's why abortion is "constitutional" in the eyes of many Americans.

According to the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment..."

192 posted on 04/24/2002 7:58:27 AM PDT by sheltonmac
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 190 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson